sábado, julho 15, 2017

A reason for
Portugal's relatively low profile in the English-speaking world vis-à-vis its
neighbour Spain is that -- at least not since William Beckford -- the country
hasn't had as many high-profile Anglo or foreign writers celebrating it. In
Spain, the rich tradition runs from George Borrow, Géricault, Richard Ford,
Gerald Brenan, Orwell and Hemingway to Chris Stewart, Cees Noteboom, Ian Gibson
and Michael Jacobs (leading to disgruntlement in Spain that the country is
often viewed through romantic, yet ultimately foreign eyes). By comparison, the
anglo writers on Portugal (Marion Kaplan, Richard Zimmler, Richard Wilson)
offer decent enough insights, yet are not literary heavyweights, while Zadie
Smith's “Alentejo Blue” did little justice to the Alentejo.

Likewise, while
Portugal has exported footballers successfully, it has fared less well than
Spain regarding cultural icons. Generally, recurring themes are anachrony,
disjuncture, loss-of-glory, timelessness (Wim Wenders' Lisbon story focusing on
this, António Lobo Antunes hallucinatory prose on the subject). Saramago is the
obvious star, and is also the most rewarding writer to consult on
Portuguese/Spanish tensions: he enjoyed a self-imposed exile in Lanzarote,
occasionally courting controversy with rampant pan-Iberianism (his 'união
ibérica', and suggestions that 'Portugal could only benefit from joining Spain'
infuriated his countrymen!), while his marriage to Pilar del Rio was the perfect
way to eschew the maxim 'de Espanha nem bom vento nem bom casamento' (From
Spain, neither good wind nor good marriage will come). Paraphrasing Eduardo
Lourenço, one of our leading Portuguese essayists, we suffer more from a case of
excess of identity (Portugal is one of the oldest countries in Europe) than
from a lack of identity. The Spanish ruled Portugal from 1580 to 1640, when
they were barely the country we've came to know as Spain these days. Our
problem is mostly with ourselves and with Africa. The whole decolonization
process is one of the main themes of Portuguese contemporary fiction.

Portuguese
writing suffered lots of influences, not so much from Spain but specially from
France (XIX-early XX century). We must remember that Portugal was under the
French influence as early as the French Invasions in the XVIII century. And as
a country we were always very independent, even in our writing, distilling
influences and allowing very little in - other than the obvious vocabulary and
style influences. I think our literature remains original and set apart from
the rest of Europe, and from Spain as well. Portugal has a lot of proximity, in
my opinion, to a fringe of south American literature, like Borges and Marquez.
Not so plush as those, but very intelligent and closed up on itself.

As every
Portuguese knows very well, we don't relate to Spain at all... friendly neighbours
may we be, but not brothers at heart...

NB: I could tell
you about Valter Hugo Mãe, who is also a considerable poet, Lídia Jorge, with
her post-colonial insights, Mário de Carvalho, surely one of the best analysts
of the contemporary Portuguese quotidian, and Agustina Bessa-Luís, a classical
writer who is definitely Portugal's greatest novelist. Watch out for Gonçalo M.
Tavares, who only started publishing at the age of 31 and has published, in the
last 7 years, at least, 22 books. He's currently being translated all over the
place.

(Some of my Caminho SF books)

What about Portuguese SF writers? We have a few, but they’re
only known in the portuguese SF tribe: João Barreiros, Luis Filipe Silva, António
De Macedo, Cristina Alves, Carlos Silva, Telmo Marçal, Victor Frazão, Mário de
Seabra Coelho, Marta Santos Silva, Daniel Tércio, David Soares, Filipe Faria,
Inês Botelho, João Aniceto, Jorge Candeias, José Saramago, Madalena Santos,
Miguel Neto, Nuno Neves, Sandra Carvalho, José Manuel Morais, João Paulo
Cotrim, Manuel F. S. Patrocínio, etc. Why don’t we read
portuguese SF? This is not a case of not reading Portuguese SF. We don’t read.
Period. There’s an urban saying we the Portuguese don’t read because the books
are expensive (most new books coming out now might cost at least 15 euros), but
I have some difficulty believing that. What
I think is that art, and literature in particular, requires a certain
intellectual maturity and familiarity with the language that can hardly be
acquired without some culture and education, something that neither abounds nor
has ever abounded in our secluded seafront. If wed don’t read the so-called
mundane fiction can we expect a vast readership when it comes to SF? Not in a
million years! I am not saying
that the book price does not influence the number of books bought by those who
are interested in reading, be it SF or mundane fiction. Nor do I reject that
the publishers may have a net benefit with a fall in prices and a corresponding
increase in the market; it’s possible, but not very likely. But the steep price
is no excuse for anyone who has not read anything at all for a year. Probably
most would not have read anything even if someone paid them to do so. If I were
to run a poll on the street, I believe the possible answers to "why the Portuguese do not read?" would be:

A) We are terrible
busy and consequently do not have time to read;

B) We don’t have
any money to spend on frivolities;

No one would
answer:

C) Because I'm a
bit of a troglodyte.

Especially when
he or she is not guilty of being unaware of his or her own rusticity.

Now, to finish
off with a tangent: call me reactionary; If the only thing you read is rubbish we’re
better off not reading anything at all (lots of Portuguese Contemporary Fiction
is rubbish to say the least). There is nothing inherently helpful in
translating scribbles into ideas, unless those ideas have some substance. To
make a point, as I have already heard somewhere else, is that it is through the
habit of reading Margarida Rebelo Pinto (one of our leading Contemporary
writers of the lite-literature of the crap variety) that one may arrive at AntónioLobo Antunes; this is tantamount to saying that it is by the habit of
hearing Lady Gaga that one arrives at Bach. That's not quite the way it works.

Most of my Portuguese
SF friends (the Tribe) only read SF in English. I’m one of those cases. But I
also read Portuguese SF written in Portuguese. What I don’t do is read
Anglo-Saxon SF translated into Portuguese. With a only a few exceptions, most
of the guys translating SF into Portuguese are not conversant with the genre
conventions. Forget it! The question of the prevalence of English-speaking
authors in Portugal is thus unavoidable (because we don’t read SF in translation).
In my view (and I presume, in the case of those with good judgment and enough SF
reading in the bag), the notoriety of many authors who write in English is
mainly due to the fact that this is the language that dominates the literary
market around the world. I believe that if many of these Anglo-Saxon SF authors
were Portuguese, born in Portugal and writing in Portuguese, hardly anyone
would hear of them because they wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of being
published. Hence foreign authors (English or any other) are not synonymous with
quality; at most, they’re posters of popularity (two things often confused) - Vide
my review
of the latest Brian Staveley. In the same circumstances, were the Portuguese
language to occupy a more dominant place in the world-wide literary market,
there would probably be enough names of Portuguese-speaking authors on the
bestsellers' lists (of course, some with merit and others only to take
advantage of the hitchhiking of the language). What about the question of the
role of publishers in the dissemination of Portuguese authors (in any literary
genre)? Publishers have to make money to publish, and they have to publish in
order to make money. It is the vicious circle of the commercial system which
unfortunately excludes national works of potential quality and commercial
value. It is the financial risk and not the qualitative opposite that has the
last word in the decision to publish a book (in my present perspective of the publishing
market). What if the publishers were to risk more than what they do on the household
names, i.e., in the almost forbidden territory of recent authors? Well, it
would be almost a miracle if they just went on a limb by publishing unknown
authors. Even the recent bets of two large Portuguese publishing groups of
(pseudo) platforms of independent / new / unknown authors seeking to exploit
this entryway to new names for purposes of mere financial gain seems stupid.
These bets on new authors (digital publishing only) do not carry the same
financial risks inherent in publishing physical books, and yet the business (as
usual) seems specifically designed to exploit authors and draw readers near to
those who pay for print books. What can I say? The absurd transcends the
boundaries of ridicule.

Authors need
readers, and readers need authors. Despite the explosion of independent authors
in the digital market, publishers still play a key role as intermediaries in
this relationship. If readers are always presented to the same authors
(independently of how they are good), readers will never know new authors
(equally good or better).

What happened to
the Line of Science Fiction by Editorial Caminho? I discovered lots of
Portuguese writers by reading all the books published in this line of SF books.

There many worthwhile discussion panels, but the real treat was the one presented under the title “Enredos
inacreditáveis” (“Unbelievable Plots”) moderated by João Barreiros and Cristina
Alves; they gave us SF book plots and the audience had to guess the book
title and author. All of my sweet spots titillated...

(From left to right: Cristina Alves, João Barreiros and Carlos Silva)

Some of the books we had to guess:

"The Deep" by John Crowley

"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi

"A Bondade dos Estranhos" (aka "Se Acordar Antes de Morrer") by João Barreiros (A Kindness of Strangers/aka If I Wake Up Before I die)

"Perdido Street Station" by China Miéville

"Dark Universe" by Daniel F. Galouye

NB: This was the only book I couldn't guess the title and author... I've got to read it.

"City of Stairs" by Robert Jackson Bennett

"Tales of Pirx the Pilot" by Stanislaw Lem

Also worth mentioning was the first presentation of the book "Anjos" (Angels) by Luis Filipe Silva.

(from left to right: Divergências book editor, Carlos Silva and Luis Filipe Silva)

(Anjos' book blurb by Ana Filipa Ferreira)

(Anjos' book blurb by Luis Filipe Silva)

On another registre, Isaque Sanches' presentation on "The Bullshit Art of Game Design" was also quite interesting:

2 comentários:

I have a real mixed reaction when it comes to non-english books. Most of the pre-1900 stuff is just fine, as it has had years to survive and translations pick up the polish they need.

But modern fantasy/sf? Lukyanenko's stuff has been ok, but I tried a french fantasy [where the author was touted as france's top sf writer] and my goodness, it was bad. But it was impossible to tell if it was the original writing that was bad or the translators doing a piss poor job. But now I just stay away from non-english works and treat them like indie writers.

If I don't have time to read all the english works, something foreign has to be super good to make me want to spend time on it.

"Terrarium" by João Barreiros and Luis Filipe Silva can vie with the best of Anglo-Saxon SF. Unfortunately no one picked it up for an American or British translation... That means only we, the Portuguese, know there's a SF masterpiece waiting to be discovered. If I had the time, I'd do it, just to show the world how good we can be at writing top-notch SF. Alas, no chance of that happening in the foreseeable future...